The Puffer Forum

No, sadly, the only problem we ever had with Doodles was fatal. We did have a similar problem with our previous Mbu, Puffski, a few years back, and again, this was purely down to letting him overeat and easily remedied by increasing the oxygen by directing the flow nearer to the surface. Not something we tried to let happen very often though - as you mention, we too believe in "grazing" - little and often rather than a whopping great meal every few days. With this same Mbu, we also caused a fairly unusual wound to his skin - purely accidental, but one never to forget:

Our turtle is soft shelled, so often used to scratch himself on the Bogwood in the tank. His shell became so sore once that we had to treat it with Tamadine (an oitment requiring direct application to the shell), but taking him out of the water panicked him, so we held him at the surface of the water which kept him calm. Only Puffski noticed the thumb of my partner's hand as he was holding Myrtle, and before I could finish my warning, Puffski nipped the dangling thumb (easily confused with a mussel poor guy). Myrtle went down with a splash; only Puffski was a little startled and darted upwards, hitting the tank lights. The heat of the light was enough to burn his sensitive skin (not deeply I must add) but this caused a similar loss of colour to a patch of the skin. He then had a small orange patch of skin for about a week, after which it healed over and his pattern returned. I have not heard of the burying before, although it seems like a natural instinct for them to remain motionless - that way they use less energy for movement, so can concentrate using the available oxgen to respire and digest.

We do have a few pics of the turtle and the Mbu - will see if I can upload them at some point.

Thats good to hear someone else's viewpoint on feeding these fish and glad that you have only experienced it the once. The burning of the skin sounds bad but I think that its better than carpet surfing which is what has happened toa few smaller puffers when they have bitten the hand that feeds Your idea about the burrowing is interesting too amd makes sense.

Can I ask if any of your Mbu developed a black spot on the underside near the tail? I am wondereing if this is a way to sex them perhaps and also how old have they lived in the past?

I was very disconcerted to read my LFS's latest stock list and see that they have a mbu for sale.

It is very sad to see them in little tanks full of other fish that bother them. If only it were simple to police the administration of licences for large fish and checks to ensure that the tanks they are going in are suitable, I would support such an idea if it ever came about